Heretofore, a lighting device as described in Patent Literature 1 has been proposed as a high pressure discharge lamp lighting device that lights a high pressure discharge lamp such as a high-intensity discharge lamp (HID lamp). In a conventional example described in Patent Literature 1, instead of applying a high-voltage pulse to the high pressure discharge lamp from an igniter (starting circuit) at a starting time, an output voltage of a boost chopper circuit at the starting time is increased more than an output voltage at a time of steady lighting, whereby the high pressure discharge lamp is started.
Moreover, in the above-described conventional example, a power supply of a control circuit (control power supply) for adjusting the output voltage of the boost chopper circuit is obtained from an induced voltage that is induced in a winding magnetically coupled to an inductor that composes the boost chopper circuit.